Standing on the Edge

One thing I absolutely loathe about being in my 20s is how frequently I feel like I'm standing at the edge of a cliff, looking down, and wondering what the heck is going to happen next. All of my expectations have gone out the window - I have no idea if I could fall off the metaphorical cliff, if I could be pushed off of it, if I should retreat to whatever's behind about me, or if I should jump to whatever is to be found below me. It's exhausting.

All to frequently, I feel like I'm having the day/week/month/year from hell. Sometimes, it's so bad that I feel like Earth must be hell, only people are too caught up in themselves to realize it. Of course, when I realize I'm thinking this, I tend to think about how screwed up that thought must be, and what a drama-llama I must be for having it. Then I wonder if it's just my depression talking.

I was twelve when I was formally diagnosed with depression, and looking back, it wasn't a surprise. Yes, I was young. But by that time, I had also been exposed to the deaths of several loved ones, the deterioration of my parents' marriage, and physical, verbal, and emotional abuse. On top of puberty and all the crazy crap it does to your hormones, mental illness runs rampant in one side of my family.

Needless to say, I often wonder - and worry (yes, my anxiety diagnosis went hand in hand with my depression diagnosis) - if things are really as horrible as they feel. It's a product both of my depression and anxiety and the way people close to me have treated me over the years, always quick to tell me that whatever I was feeling was wrong and pathetic and weird and screwed-up. It made me become exceedingly careful about revealing my feelings or allowing myself to even feel them, for fear that I would be judged harshly for it.

At the moment, I feel like I have a lot going on.

• I'm in the middle of transferring law schools, something I really didn't want to do. Unfortunately, I didn't really have much of a choice after I lost my scholarship. I'll have a longer commute, a more hectic schedule, a very new/different campus environment, a number of new traffic laws to remember, a new group of people to get used to, and new challenges related to my mobility impairments to deal with. I'm hoping it will be a better environment for me, but I still haven't been able to let go of the resentment I have towards my old school for making this change necessary. I was comfortable there, and despite the constant stream of bad luck I got hit with during my first year (shingles, cellulitis, an allergic reaction, numerous joint injuries, a severe concussion, getting rear-ended, and the major health scare of a loved one), I still managed a GPA over a 3.2.
• My hypermobility is worsening, probably due to the lack of exercise I can do without dislocating something/subluxing something/ending up in a shit-ton of pain. In the past six months, both my shoulders and my knees have started dislocating, mostly notably when I'm trying to get to sleep.
• I've become estranged from two close family members. Even though one was extremely abusive during my childhood, it still hurts.
• I don't know where my relationship stands. There's an issue my SO (?) has had since pretty much the beginning of our relationship. At first, I was understanding, and it wasn't a big deal. It did, however, present issues for the long-term future of our relationship if it remained the way it was. I encouraged him to seek the help necessary to become psychologically healthier in that respect, doing whatever I could to make him realize the gravity of the problem while trying not to push too hard and respecting the fact that these things take time. Nearly two years later, even after seeking help, the problem is not better but exponentially worse, and it makes me feel horrible. I can't help resenting him for putting me through this and not doing the necessary work to get through it. I love this guy - I want to marry him someday, for fuck's sake, but I've gotten to the point where I lash out at him in desperation to make him see how much he's hurting me. He insists he loves me and that he's working on things, but I can't take it anymore. How long am I supposed to wait for things to get better?

Above all, my relationship is what has me the most stressed and upset lately. That's what has me on the edge of the cliff right now. We're not talking, and everything feels so hopeless. I love this guy and want to be with him and be happy more than anything in the world, but he doesn't seem capable of meeting me halfway... or even realizing that he isn't. Whenever we try to talk about it, I feel like he's so insensitive and/or completely out-of-touch with the reality of how this makes me feel; he de-values my pain. First, he seems to understand, but reacts by beating himself up about it and getting down on himself. Then, he does a one-eighty and suggests that I'm taking out my stress from other things on him, and that he's the one who deserves an apology.

It makes me infuriated and extremely depressed all at once. I've had eleven years to get used to my depression and anxiety and how it can cause me to react, and I have become almost hyper-aware of the things I'm feeling or not letting myself feel at every moment. I DO NOT let myself take my stress and unhappiness about something on a person unrelated to it under any circumstances. Doing so is one of my worst fears. If I feel like I'm going to, I tell the person that I can't talk at the moment, need to be left alone, etc. and that I need to decompress and calm down; it isn't personal, I just don't want them to be the victim of misplaced anger/agression/whatever.

I don't know what is going to happen, and part of me wishes I could freeze time right in this moment, so that I'd never have to deal with any of those questions standing on the edge gives you.

Do you ever feel like this?